This is the Winter 2018 course discussion blog for and by UCLA students enrolled in LGBTQ Studies 183: Queer Arts in LA.
This course includes a creative component. When this course was first offered during the Fall 2012 quarter, the students researched queer artists who have a significant connection to Los Angeles. Then created a collaborative website.

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Monday, February 6, 2017

Week 5 Blogpost - Oscar

Otro Corazon 2, was a really great experience and I'm glad I was able to attend this heartfelt occasion (pun not intended ;). Being at this Chicano/queer event celebrating Tomas Ybarra-Frausto made me feel welcomed there and comfortable. Which really emphasized the community factor that this event was pushing for. It was also really incredible to see the end result of the impact one person has had on so many people.
The part of the event that resonated with me and showcased the impact TYF had on this artistic community was the "Rasquache Aesthetic" panel. Before the panel, I had no idea what rasquachismo was, but much like Tey Marianna Nunn had felt what it was about. Through the panel I learned that the rasquache aesthetic is one that is creative, resourceful, beautiful, unifying, and defiant. After, some more online research following the panel, which included a peek into TYF's ""Rasquachismo: a Chicano Sensibility," rasquache made more sense to me. In my research, I gathered that rasquache comes about through rejection; rejection of the dominant. The dominant force being be the domineering, colonial ideals, emphasized in American culture which aim to put down others and elevate themselves. Then I thought to myself of the term "pocho" a typically pejorative term used to address children of immigrant Mexican parents living in the US. Ni de aqui, ni de alla (not from here, nor from there) something I heard growing up. This notion that you don't belong here in the US, but you also don't belong there, in Mexico. Once I tied "pocho" with "rasquache," the term took a new meaning.
Rasquachismo made sense because it defines itself in that ambiguity similarly to "pocho;" both creating this subculture out of nothing and calling it your own (Chicanismo). Laura Perez called it the "passage of the deconstructed" and something that "moves beyond that which seeks to normalize." I'm glad I was there to celebrate TYF because it gave new meaning to how I define myself and made me more aware of the contexts in which I am fitting that definition in.